US Export-Import Bank (Exim) and Export Development Canada (EDC), two of
the world's largest publicly funded development finance institutions, will not
be contributing to the highly controversial Pascua Lama gold mining project
straddling the border between Argentina and Chile. The
project has already and will further destroy glaciers to get at
gold mineral deposits if it gets underway, affecting the water supply for
indigenous communities and small agriculture in Chile as well as an
internationally protected biosphere reserve in Argentina.

Exim Bank which lists Category
A projects under consideration notes the Pascua Lama project as "Withdrawn".[1] A spokesperson from Exim bank indicated that
Barrick has simply decided to take its business elsewhere. EDC never published
the project because Pascua Lama never made it past preliminary due diligence
review.[2] EDC has also confirmed that Barrick has decided
to seek financing elsewhere.

Pascua Lama has drawn strong
opposition from thousands of local residents, NGOs, environmental activists,
indigenous groups and even government agencies which have spoken strongly
against the project. Both Exim and EDC's due diligence reviews were bogged down
with long lines of stakeholders wanting to express their concerns and offer
information to the banks regarding the present and expected social and
environmental impacts to be felt by the mega gold mine, the first bi-national
mining venture of its kind.

In November of 2011, the Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA)
filed an Equator
Principles Due Diligence Review of Pascua Lama to Exim and to EDC, laying out in 45 pages of
detail, the clear violations to the Equator Principles of the Pascua Lama
Project should either bank move forward with financing. The report centered on
glacier impacts, indigenous community impacts, mountain highland impacts, and
several other social and environmental dimensions which would be irreversibly
affected by the Pascua Lama project. CEDHA as well as several co-sponsors to
the complaint (including the International Accountability Project, Banktrack,
FuCI and Inti Chuteh, called on the banks to reject Barrick's request for
financing the controversial bi-national gold mine. It is estimated that
eventual loans to Barrick could have been in the order of hundreds of millions
of dollars.

Other groups organized across the Andes, particularly inChile, but
streaming up to North America, and around the world, sending letters and
requests to both EDC and Exim to drop Barrick from any financing
consideration. Argentina's National Park Services also expressed concerns
over Barrick's impacts to local water streams that could affect the
internationally protected San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve. The project is also
in conflict, argues CEDHA, withArgentina's recently enacted Glacier Protection
Law. Barrick has attacked the law in federal courts, seeking an injunction to
suspend the law in the Argentine province of San Juan, where
Pascua Lama is set to implement.

Among the evidence presented to the banks was Barrick's original hard-to-believeGlacier
Management Plan, which essentially proposed to dynamite glaciers that were in the way of
the gold reserves and haul the ice off in dump trucks to avoid, as Barrick put
it incredulously, environmental hazards that might occur due to collapsing ice
at the mine site!

Barrick probably thought, that the rapidly mounting opposition to eventual
EDC and Exim bank loans, would lead to a rejection by the banks. Both EDC and
Exim have to respect global social and environmental standards they adhere to
under the Equator
Principles. Barrick's request was already delayed for over a year, as the due
diligence processes dragged on addressing local social and environmental
concerns. An EDC or Exim bank rejection of Barrick's loan application would
have driven up financial costs for Barrick and they'd have to turn to other
private banks, under more risky investment circumstances. Barrick's decision to
withdraw their financing request to EDC and Exim bank is likely to be due to
Barrick deciding to cut losses short before the risks of further conflict
further raises financial costs.